


lover.

by shedoessomewriting



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Jopper, One Shot, This was so much fun, i love them, just so cute, senior prom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 18:09:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20313793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shedoessomewriting/pseuds/shedoessomewriting
Summary: senior prom for joyce and hopper begins differently than they expected, but it ends exactly as it was meant to.---"how would she ever function without him? perhaps she wouldn’t have to. maybe this really was it, like he’d said. joyce hopper, she mouthed, turning the words over. they didn’t feel so foreign. actually, she liked the way they sounded together."





	lover.

**Author's Note:**

> based off of david harbour's tweet about joyce and hop's senior prom, and taylor swift's new song "lover." just felt like them to me.

Sitting in the front seat of his car covered in the sharp, stinging scent of his cigarettes was not how Jim Hopper, the king of Hawkins High, was supposed to be spending his senior prom, and yet, he found himself feeling glued to the leather seats of his dad’s Oldsmobile, unable to pull the Camel out of his hand.

Joyce Horowitz was supposed to be his date. They were supposed be together, tearing up the floor of the gymnasium while “Lucille” by Little Richard played for the thousandth time that night. Slow dancing was not really their thing - the pair was known for their ability to liven up any party, walking in guns blazing and leaving like action stars as explosions went off behind them. They were the electric couple, the duo everyone wanted to be around. Despite the fact that Joyce tended to hang around Karen Wheeler and her squad of soon-to-be stay at home moms and Hop leaned towards the thick-headed football players, everyone liked them.

Well, not separately. But everyone liked them together.

They would have had prom court in the bag. Even the girls who had a crush on Hop and the boys who were obsessed with Joyce would have voted for them, because not one single person in all of Hawkins could deny that Horowitz and Hopper (H and H, as they were frequently called) were perfect for each other.

Of course, being so “perfect” had its consequences.

A pair as evenly matched as he and Joyce were fought quite regularly. Strong personalities going head to head almost never ended well. They had made a pact not to argue with each other in the few weeks leading up to prom, agreeing that they wanted to be able to go together, to make their senior prom one to remember. It had been going well,  _ so _ well, until Joyce found out that Hop had been sharing cigarettes with Chrissy Carpenter.

The fight that had ensued was unmatched by anything that had ever gone wrong between them before.

“Are you serious, Hop? Chrissy Carpenter?” she’d screamed.

“She asked for a smoke, I lent her a few! What is the problem?!” he yelled back. Any other girl surely would have been intimidated by Hopper’s massive frame - he towered over everyone at six foot one, and he was still growing, so he said - but Joyce stared him down, unwilling to back off.

“The  _ problem _ -” She’d emphasized the word with a weak shove to his left shoulder. “- is that swapping cigarettes is not something you do with  _ Chrissy _ fucking  _ Carpenter _ , it’s something you do with  _ me _ ,” she shouted, her voice cracking on the last word.

Hop shook his head. “Joycie, do you really think I’m trying to replace you with Chrissy Carpenter?”

She shrugged, and he put his hands on her shoulders. “Absolutely not. Not in a million years. I don’t think I could replace you with anyone.” Joyce moved herself out from under the weight of his hands, swiping tears off her cheeks with the back of her hands. “Joyce?”

“That’s the problem right there, Hop. You don’t  _ think  _ you could replace me with anyone. But you know something? I know for a  _ fact _ I couldn’t replace you with anyone. Not now. Not ever.”

“What?”

“If there’s a chance you might be able to replace me with someone like Chrissy, I don’t think I can go to prom with you. Why don’t you take your new smoking buddy.” It was a question, technically, but she’d said it like a statement, and immediately walked away, leaving Hop alone to question what in the world had just happened. 

He switched his cigarette brand over to Joyce’s that evening.

But, he’d followed her instructions. He asked Chrissy Carpenter to prom. Picked her up, put on the corsage, got the boutonniere pinned, followed the routine. And when they got to the school, he’d walked her into the gym, excused himself to the bathroom, and stuck himself in the front seat of his car for what he was sure would be the rest of the night.

He was at least four cigarettes into prom when somebody knocked on the passenger side window. Hop quickly put the smoke out, assuming it was a teacher, and turned with a sheepish grin to face whoever was about to give him detention for the next week. 

Instead, he was met with the big brown eyes of Joyce Horowitz.

She’d gone to the prom with Lonnie Byers, and Hopper thought that was just a  _ joke _ . Hadn’t she just claimed she couldn’t replace him? Going to senior prom with someone as tremendously awful as Lonnie Byers was just a slap in the face to everything he and Joyce had been together.

“Hiya, Hop,” she greeted through the glass. “Get outta the car, will you?” Joyce grinned at him, pointing to the trunk of the car. Hop followed her directions, sort of hazy, and met her at the back of the car. 

“Why are you out here?” he asked, an unwelcoming, accusatory tone in his voice. He didn’t like that he sounded like that talking to Joyce.

She scratched the side of her nose, thinking of an answer. “I dunno,” she settled. She pulled herself up onto the trunk of the car and started fiddling with the hem of her blue dress. It was a shock just to see Joyce in a dress; she was always, surprisingly, a few steps ahead of the trends, and with the sixties just around the corner, she was already wearing pants on the regular.

“Okay,” he responded, propping his elbows on the trunk beside her and leaning against it.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Hop repeatedly running his hands through his hair and Joyce sighing a little too often.

“I don’t care if you give cigarettes to Chrissy Carpenter,” Joyce whispered at long last. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth me having to spend my senior prom with - fuck, I really went with Lonnie Byers!” she laughed.

He cracked a smile. “You’re allowed to be upset I gave cigarettes to her. But I tripped over my words when we fought, and I said,” he sighed, “I said I didn’t  _ think _ I could ever replace you, but then I actually tried, and I took Chrissy Carpenter to prom, and it was awful.”

“We ruined our senior prom,” she shrugged.

“I can’t replace you, Joycie,” he said, turning to face her, grabbing her hands in his own. “This is it. I mean, us, you and me, this is  _ it _ .” 

“I’m crazy for you, Jim Hopper,” Joyce mumbled, pulling her hands out of his so she could grab his face. “ _ Crazy _ . I’m sorry I fought with you about something as trivial as cigarettes.”

He smiled, and she felt the muslces in his face twitch under her hands. “All’s well that ends well to end up with you,” he teased, bringing himself close enough to her that he could feel her breath on his lips.

“Just crazy,” she whispered, closing the little distance between them to kiss him. It was familiar but surprising, the same yet different, an odd promise of what felt like forever to the two eighteen-year-olds in their high school’s parking lot.

“We cannot go back into that gymnasium,” Hopper joked when they broke apart. “I think our dates might be kind of upset.”

Joyce smacked her palm against her forehead. “I forgot about them,” she whined. “Senior prom, still ruined.”

“Well, maybe not.” Joyce knit her eyebrows, confused at his plan, but Hop just grinned at her. “Listen. Can’t you hear the music?”

She could, when she focused, hear the low, rumbling sound of music coming through the gymnasium walls. “A little. Do you even know this song?”

“Nope. I think it’s something new. We can dance out here.”

Joyce laughed at him, playfully swatting his shoulder. “Yeah, sure! This sounds like a slow song, and that doesn’t sound like us, does it? What a gas,” she joked.

He picked her up off the truck and placed her on the ground, putting both of his hands around her waist. “Let’s make this new song ours.”

“A slow one?”

“Why not?” Joyce was about to protest, sure that he was still teasing, but there was a look in his eyes that let her know that this was serious. H and H, dancing to a slow song. New, certainly, but perhaps not bad.

“Okay,” she agreed, thankful for the extra height her heels gave her when she was able to reach her arms around Hop’s neck. Slow dancing was new to her, to them, but she knew the drill - listen to the music, sway to the beat.

_ Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? _

Hop tugged her closer, tilted his head down so their foreheads were touching as they moved back and forth in tandem. She knew her eyes were closed, relishing in the peace of this moment, and figured his probably were, too. Joyce loved it here, in Hopper’s arms. It felt like home, like she was built to be here. Two pieces of a puzzle, lucky enough to find each other.

_ Take me out, take me home. You’re my, my, my, my…  _

How would she ever function without him? Perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Maybe this really was it, like he’d said. _Joyce Hopper,_ she mouthed, turning the words over. They didn’t feel so foreign. Actually, she liked the way they sounded together. “I love you,” she whispered, surprised to hear the words out of Hopper’s mouth at the exact same time.

_ Oh, you’re my, my, my, my... _

Promising forever at eighteen wasn’t smart, she knew it. There would be obstacles - the war was still going on, and surely big, strong, brave Jim Hopper would get drafted. Their dreams and goals would surely get in the way of the two of them together.

Forever in a school parking lot didn’t feel like a permanent forever.

But she was sure of one thing. They were a puzzle. Two pieces, perfectly matched for each other. Come what may, the puzzle was definitely going to be completed.

Forever might take a while to find them once they left the four walls of Hawkins High behind, but eventually, forever would be theirs.

_ Darling, you’re my, my, my, my… lover. _

**Author's Note:**

> hope you loved this!!! I wrote it this morning, and it has not been edited even a lick, but it was so much fun to write and hopefully you had just as great a time reading it. until next time!
> 
> I'm always posting little drabbles and theories on my tumblr, which you can find at november61983.tumblr.com!
> 
> xo


End file.
